The subject of this portrait is the nephew of Gericault’s friend the painter Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy. This canvas is one of a small group of drawings and paintings (in various collections) that depict the eight- or nine-year-old Alfred and his younger sister, Elisabeth, with remarkable self-possession and grace for their age. Alfred became a painter and, like Gericault, was enamored of horses. Eugène Delacroix, who had studied with Gericault, later owned this painting.

Technical Notes

Infrared reflectography shows a different composition beneath the portrait, and with the canvas rotated 90 degrees to the right. The infrared reflectogram (see Additional Images, fig. 1) shows a turbaned black groom leading a saddled, bridled horse in a desert landscape with, at left, a pyramid and a palm tree and, at right, a second pyramid.

Yokohama Museum of Art. "Treasures from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: French Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century," March 25–June 4, 1989, no. 78 (as "Alfred Dedreux (1810–1860) as a Child").

F. H. Lem. "Gericault portraitiste." L'arte 28 (January–June 1963), pp. 67, 86–87, no. 13, pl. V, fig. d-13, dates it 1817, on the basis of the style and the apparent age of the sitter; relates it to the double portrait of Alfred Dedreux and his sister (private collection, Paris), which he also dates 1817; states that the duke of Trévise bought it at the Goetz sale of 1922; lists provenance and exhibition history.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, XIX Century. New York, 1966, p. 21, ill., date it about 1818–20; state that "the dramatic simplification of the chiaroscuro and the intense color make this one of Gericault's most characteristic works"; mention that Delacroix either bought this at Gericault's estate sale or got it from the sitter's uncle Dedreux-Dorcy.

Lorenz Eitner inCharles Clément: Géricault; A Biographical and Critical Study with a Catalogue Raisonné of the Master's Works; Reprint of the Definitive Edition of 1879 [with Introduction and Supplement by Eitner]. New York, 1974, p. 447, no. 14, adds provenance and exhibition details.

Philippe Grunchec inTout l'oeuvre peint de Gericault. Paris, 1978, p. 101, 104, 107, no. 95, colorpl. XVII and fig. 95, calls it "Portrait d'Alfred de Dreux enfant, assis dans la campagne" and suggests that the strong color and rather crude contrasts indicate a date before Alfred's stay in Rome with his father, Pierre-Anne Dedreux, in 1815–18; notes that this painting was included in Delacroix's posthumous inventory as no. 228.

Hélène Toussaint. French Painting: The Revolutionary Decades, 1760–1830. Exh. cat., Art Gallery of New South Wales. Sydney, 1980, p. 107, dates it 1814–15? and discusses the landscape, noting that this is the last time the "heavily impasted, fleecy clouds" appear in Gericault's work.

Lorenz E. A. Eitner. Géricault, His Life and Work. London, 1983, pp. 93, 300, 334 n. 134, colorpl. 16, states that it was probably painted in the summer of 1815; discusses the odd monumetalization and harshness of the work, influenced by the "Michelangelesque grandeur" of Gericault's academic nudes of the same period.

Dewey F. Mosby. "Notes on Two Portraits of Alfred Dedreux by Gericault." Arts 58 (September 1983), pp. 84–85, fig. 2, proposes that it was painted in 1817, when both the sitter and the painter were living in Rome.

Alfred Dedreux (1810–1860), who would later become known as a painter of racing and hunting scenes, was the son of the architect Pierre-Anne Dedreux (1789–1874), and the nephew of the painter Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy (1789–1849), both friends of Gericault. The sitter was identified on the basis of his resemblance to a double portrait by Gericault of Alfred Dedreux with his sister (formerly Becq de Fouquières collection; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 8, 1925, no. 24; private collection, Paris). See Mosby 1983 for a different theory concerning the identity of the little girl. In the MMA portrait the little boy appears to be between eight and ten years old, which would place the picture about 1818–1820, a dating that accords with the style in which it was painted.

A bust-length portrait by Gericault of a child, probably Alfred Dedreux, was loaned to an exhibition in Rome in 1979–80 by Robert Lebel, Paris.

The pendant to this portrait depicts the sitter's sister Elisabeth Dedreux in the Roman countryside (private collection). An x-ray of the pendant revealed that it was painted over an image of the head of Alfred Dedreux.